


a clean break

by Wildehack (tyleet)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Eye Trauma, F/F, past Jon/Georgie - Freeform, post TMA 155
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-07 17:36:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20821184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tyleet/pseuds/Wildehack
Summary: Georgie’s phone rings at work, and she almost doesn’t answer it.





	a clean break

Georgie’s phone rings at work, and she almost doesn’t answer it. Has anything good ever actually come of taking Jon Sims’ calls? (This is bitterness talking. She knows that. But it’s still enough to make her hesitate over the phone for a minute before taking it into the break room and answering it on the last ring.)   
  
“Hi,” she says, guarded.   
  
“Hi,” he says, tired and familiar and still dear to her, in spite of everything. “I–I’m not sure if you know, but––did, did Melanie tell you we can quit?”   
  
“She did,” Georgie says, and wonders with a little punch of dread if this is going to be like the therapy conversation again, where Jon asks her for the support he knows very well she can’t give him.   
  
“Ah,” he says. “And––you know Melanie is––”   
  
“Taking the option, yeah,” Georgie says. They’ve got a plan in place. Georgie’s been doing some–honestly awful research, but she has a friend in the NHS who can get her the right kind of acid. He thinks he can get it to her by next week at the soonest. 

“No,” Jon says abruptly. “Not next week, Georgie–now.”  
  
She blinks. “What?”   
  
“_Right _now, in her office,” he says. “With an awl.”   
  
Georgie doesn’t feel afraid, obviously, but what people get wrong about fear is that it’s got nothing to do with worry, or love, or the way her heart kicks into overdrive, adrenaline literally propelling her up to her feet. “Fuck,” she says, and her voice comes out high, panicked. “She’s––Jon, what if she hurts herself?”   
  
Jon’s laugh is unsteady and understandable under the circumstances and deeply fucking unappreciated. “I think that’s the idea.”   
  
“Fuck you,” she snaps, nerveless fingers fumbling with her jacket. “She could, she could do real damage to––_brain damage_, or she could bleed out, or––”   
  
“She knows what she’s doing,” Jon says. “She didn’t want help, she––wanted to do it alone. I just––I thought you should–I thought someone should be there for her. After.”   
  
Georgie spits out an excuse to her boss––that’ll be fun to deal with when she gets back, but it’s not important right now––and heads out the door. “You’re damn right about that. Which hospital?”   
  
“The ambulance isn’t here yet,” he says, and she has no patience for this.   
  
“_Which hospital_,” she demands, and he takes a short, even breath in, and answers: “Gordon’s.”   
  
He stays on the line with her while she swears and hails a cab, and then once she gives the direction and tries to calm her hammering heart, he says quietly: “Okay, the ambulance is here. I’ve got to go.”   
  
“Jon––” she doesn’t even know what she wants to say, just that she doesn’t want him to leave.   
  
“I know,” he says, her exhausting, infuriating, all-knowing Jon. “Take care of each other, okay?”   
  
“Take care of _yourself_,” she tells him, biting her lip against the rest of it, the offer she can’t make him but wants him to take anyway. She inhales a little at the end of it, and she thinks maybe he heard her regardless.  
  
“I will,” he says, a very gentle lie. “I’ve got to go.” It occurs to her that if everything else goes according to plan, this is the last she’ll hear from him. Panic lurches unreasonably in her chest at the thought. It’s not as though she won’t see him tonight.   
  
“Thanks for calling me,” she says, fast before he hangs up.  
  
“Bye, Georgie,” he tells her softly, and then he does hang up.   
  
She cries for the rest of the cab ride, and isn’t even sure who she’s crying for, who she’s angriest at.   
  
She gets it under control by the time she gets to A&E and asks to see Melanie King. They don’t let her right away, of course, but this part she and Melanie _had_ prepared for–-she’s already been designated Melanie’s Nearest Relative, mostly by carefully faking the cohabitee requirement--but honestly all it takes is namedropping “The Magnus Institute” and she’s ushered into a private waiting room and offered periodic updates on Melanie’s condition. The first doctor that tries to bring up sectioning with her gets another “Magnus Institute,” this time with a “Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute” attached. He doesn’t bring it up again.   
  
They let her in about two hours later.   
  
Melanie looks dreadful, a thick bandage wound around her eyes, an IV hooked up to her arm, and Georgie can only tell she’s awake by the way she jerks when the nurse pulls back the curtain.  
  
“It’s me, sweetheart,” Georgie says thickly, and she can hear the air go out of Melanie’s lungs in one big rush. She fumbles for a chair and then takes Melanie’s searching hand in both of hers. Melanie grips her back tightly. She presses her mouth to Melanie’s knuckles, less a kiss and more just a–-another way of confirming Melanie is really there.   
  
“So,” Melanie says after some indeterminable while, her voice hoarse, “I may have sped up the timeline a little.”   
  
They both laugh a little with sheer nerves. “Just a little,” Georgie says. “What _possessed_ you, you-–stupid, reckless-–” –-brave, beautiful, foolhardy idiot.   
  
“I just, uh, couldn’t wait,” Melanie admits. “I put the letter on Lukas’s desk and I just–-couldn’t wait til next week. Things can go wrong so quickly, things can change, and–-I had a window. I felt like I had to take it.”   
  
Georgie wants to say: you didn’t have to do it alone, wants to say: I could have been there for you, could have held your hand or done the hard part f_or _you, wants to say: you could have really hurt yourself, you could have–-but–-what bloody use are recriminations? She’s here now. Melanie’s all right. That’s the part that matters.   
  
“Did it work?” she asks, heart in her throat. “Can you-–tell?”   
  
Melanie’s mouth cracks into a smile, and that’s enough of an answer.   
  
“Thank god,” Georgie says, and they’re both laughing again, breathless and overwhelmed.   
  
“Welcome to the rest of your life, Melanie King,” Melanie says when they’ve calmed down a little, and Georgie–-has to kiss her for that, but is too afraid of disturbing the bandages on Melanie’s face, so she presses another fervent kiss to the center of Melanie’ palm. Melanie makes a soft sound. 

“I–-listen, I might blame this on shock, and, and painkillers later, because trust me, they’ve given me the good drugs, but-–I love you,” Melanie says in a rush, her hand curling against Georgie’s jaw.   
  
“Oh,” Georgie says. “Well, I love you too. Um, obviously.”   
  
“Oh,” Melanie says, and colors, flushing pink all down her neck. “Uh. That’s good.”   
  
“I think so,” Georgie says softly. 

There are so many things to feel in the world that aren’t fear: heartache, grief, love, hope.   
  
“I think,” Melanie says after a long while where Georgie just strokes her thumb over Melanie’s hand, “I think I might fall asleep again.”   
  
“That’s all right,” Georgie tells her. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”  
  
Melanie does fall asleep, and Georgie stays by her side, in stark defiance of visiting hours, using the Magnus Institute for as much as it’s worth. After a while she checks her phone. As expected, there are no missed calls. She takes a slow, deep breath in.   
  
Welcome to the rest of your life, Georgie Barker, she thinks, and if she’s sorry she’s also grateful, if she’s hurt she thinks it hurts well. 

She isn’t afraid. 

**Author's Note:**

> Reblog [on tumblr](https://wildehacked.tumblr.com/post/188009504640/a-clean-break), if you'd rather :)


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